Hyena Moon
by YowieYaoi
Summary: Kiara and her friends are tasked with putting their nighttime hunting skills to the test in a trial organized by the queen. Things go south when the princess uncovers evidence that a hyena has invaded the Pridelands. But there's something not quite right about this intruder... and Kiara might be about to find out the hard way that there's a new danger lurking in the night.
1. Chapter 1

The hunting trial began smoothly enough.

"Hunting at night is an important skill for all young lions to learn," Nala had said. "Although it provides much more stealth than daylight, hunting in the dark comes with its own unique challenges. So tonight, you will learn to overcome these challenges and make the night your own."

They had been given their task; to track down and capture specific herbivores that had each been marked by the Queen and sent off to hide across the Pridelands. And without much further ado, the three cubs walked away from the towering Priderock and into the moonlit savanna.

Zuri yawned loudly. "I'm so sleepy," she mumbled. "Did we really have to do this in the middle of night?"

"Well," began Kiara, stifling her own yawn, "it wouldn't be very effective night training if we did it during the day. It's not like we have much choice."

Tiifu padded along behind her companions, peering into the long grass around them nervously. "The other lions are watching us, right?" she asked. "If not, this'd be really dangerous. Like, just going off hunting all by ourselves in the middle of the night?"

"Don't worry, we should be pretty safe in the Pridelands," Kiara reassured her friend. "Besides, the Lion Guard is standing by in case anything goes wrong. Not that they're much happier at being woken up than we were..."

The other cub still looked unconvinced. "But how would they be able to find us in the dark? I mean, if something attacked us..."

"Aw, are you afraid Tiifu?" Zuri teased, brushing her tail against her friends' fur.

Tiifu blushed. "No I'm not," she grumbled.

"Oh I bet you are! I bet you're scared that some big ugly hyena is going to jump out and eat you up, fur and all."

"I'm not scared of some dumb old hyena," Tiifu insisted.

"Oh reeeeeeally?"

"Hey you two, do you think maybe we could focus on the tracking please?" Kiara tried to cut in, to no avail.

Zuri was now prancing around Tiifu playfully. "You may say you're not scared of hyenas," she whispered cheekily, "but you were always plenty scared of the spooky stories my mom used to tell us. Remember? The ones with the monsters?"

Tiifu's fur bristled and her eyes widened. "Oh no, please don't bring up those stories now, I'm begging you!"

"What, you mean the stories with the big, fanged beast that prowled through the long grass at night, sniffing the air for any poor stray cub that it could grab, and rip, and-"

"I said DON'T!" Tiifu shrieked. Her scream echoed across the silent night, frightening a flock of birds out of their tree and sending small animals running. For a moment, all three cubs were stunned into silence. Then Kiara sighed.

"I think we'd do a better job being stealthy if we split up," she said.

"Split up?" repeated Zuri.

"Oh no WAY am I going off on my own now," yowled Tiifu, clearly still shaken.

"Well you two can stay together, if you want," said Kiara. "For now though, I think I'm better off hunting alone. Besides, the trail splits here, and we'll cover more ground much quicker if we separate. It just makes sense, really."

The other two cubs exchanged a searching look. "Alright, if you say so Kiara," said Zuri after a while. "Just stay safe out there, okay?"

"Will do," said Kiara with a smile, and she turned to follow one of the scent trails away. Zuri nodded, then abruptly took off at full speed in a different direction.

"Come on Tiifu, the sooner we finish this task, the sooner we can get back to bed!"

For a moment, Tiifu sat where she was, glancing from one of her quickly disappearing companions to the other. When it started to sink in how alone she was however, she was up and running as fast as her paws could carry her.

"Zuri, wait for meeeee!"

...

The aardvark Kiara was tracking had put in some real work trying not to be found. Its trail zigzagged across the Pridelands, frequently doubling back on itself and running through water to try and hide itself. The princess nearly lost the scent a couple of times, but she always found it again without too much fuss. She made a mental note to praise the aardvark on its stealth after she took it back to Priderock.

Eventually Kiara crested a small rise and paused to catch her breath. The full moon floating in the sky cast a weak light over the land, and ahead of her she could see the rocks of the Outlands, looming menacing against the stars. Her pursuit had led her right to the edge of the Pridelands, far away from the safety of Priderock, and for the first time that night she felt a little nervous. _Don't be a scaredy cat_ , she scolded herself.

She started to move once more, shaking off her trepidation. She was getting close now, she could tell from how much fresher the aardvark's scent was. Soon Kiara would close the distance and complete the challenge. But it wasn't long before she started to pick up another scent.

Blood.

The princess stopped in her tracks, suddenly very unsure of what to do. On one hand, the smell of fresh blood could have just been caused by an owl or some other nocturnal bird making a kill. But on the other hand, it could mean real danger. She was close to the Outlands, Kiara reminded herself. What if she was about to walk into an Outlander's trap?

She paced back and forth for a few minutes before she came to a decision. She began to move again, but this time much slower and more stealthily. She figured she should at least try to see what the cause of the scent was before calling for help. After all, it was probably nothing. Animals were killed on the Pridelands all the time, such was the circle of life. Still, as she crawled through the grass towards the scent, Kiara hoped that the Lion Guard wasn't too far away.

It wasn't long before the scent of blood became overpowering, and soon thereafter the cause of the scent became apparent. There wasn't much left of the aardvark. Kiara could only identify it as the same one by a few bloody scraps of fur that were coated in the special clay that Nala had used to mark their targets. Other than that, the remains were unrecognisable, barely more than a red smear in the grass.

Kiara didn't know what to make of it. At first she wondered if Tiifu or Zuri had gotten here before her, and somehow forgotten that they were supposed to be capturing their prey instead of killing it. But no, she didn't think that either of her friends would have made that mistake. Besides, this messy kill site didn't look like the work of any lion. And as she paced gingerly around the area, she picked up a recognisable scent.

Hyena!

Kiara's fur bristled. Of course the outlanders would pick tonight of all nights for one of their raids. Still, something about this whole thing didn't add up. The hyena scent didn't belong to Janja, or any of the hyenas she'd encountered before. And then there was the body... it had been completely devoured, bones included. There was something very unnatural about that, something that made Kiara's skin crawl with unease.

Suddenly, a noise! Kiara instinctively flattened herself into the grass, heart racing. She could hear something moving just ahead of her, towards the Outlands. With extreme caution, she crawled a little closer. Just a little ways across the field, she could make out a dark shape moving. The hyena, or one of them anyway, was still here. To her relief, it seemed like it hadn't seen her yet, so she had an opportunity to escape unseen.

Or to launch a surprise attack, said a little voice in her head. Kiara tried to shake away that reckless thought instantly, but it kept niggling at her mind. True, she was only a cub, but she'd seen Kion take on hyenas in single combat before. And this hyena was trespassing, and stealing food. Surely she, as future queen, shouldn't stand for such a thing?

The cub's tail twitched rapidly as she weighed up her options. She scanned the sky behind her, but all she could see was blackness, dotted with stars. If Ono was keeping watch up there, she wouldn't see him unless he flew flush against the moon. Still though, she had a hunch that the Lion Guard was close by. If she could get a signal out to them somehow, then she could at least have some backup. She glanced back towards the dark shape of the hyena, which was slowly shuffling back towards the Outlands. If she was going to do something, she would have do it now, before it got too far away.

Kiara gulped. It's just one hyena, she reminded herself, then she started to crawl towards her target. Just one hyena. Hyenas are cowards. All I have to do is frighten it, and it'll probably run away. Probably. If worst comes to worst, I can always run away. I can outrun a hyena.

All these affirmations raced through her mind as she crawled towards the hyena. She was now close enough to make out the hyenas spotted hide. She could smell much better too, and the smell was... strange. Mostly like an ordinary hyena, but different. And yet, strangely familiar. Kiara felt like it almost reminded her of another scent, something she'd smelled before, but she couldn't quite place it. All that she knew was that the closer she got to this creature, the more she was filled with fear.

This is a bad idea, she realised suddenly. Whatever she'd thought a moment ago, she now felt much less prepared to take on this other predator in the middle of the night, so very far from home. Slowly as she had come, the princess began to back away, keeping her eyes fixed on the hyena as she went. One step. Two steps. Three...

Crack! A twig beneath her paw snapped. The hyena's ears pricked up. There was no time to think, so Kiara took a deep breath and leaped.

As she pounced, she let out the loudest roar she could muster. It was more of a yowl really, but as she collided with hyena fur she hoped and begged that it had been enough to draw the attention of the Guard. There was no time to dwell on it though, as she sank her claws in her foe's back, she felt it buck beneath her. A yelp of pain and surprise split the air, and suddenly Kiara lost her grip and was thrown off with enormous force. She landed on her feet and quickly turned to face her opponent. What she saw next almost made her wish she hadn't.

The first thing she noticed was that this hyena was big. Bigger than it had seemed at a distance, bigger than Janja, bigger than any hyena she'd seen before. And as it turned to face her, Kiara felt dread welling up inside. The hyena's muzzle was twisted into a grim snarl, showing off huge fangs of unnatural size. A pair of cold, piercing blue eye's locked with Kiara's, fixing her in place with fear. And then, when things seemed like they couldn't get any worse, it stood up.

It stood up out of the long grass, onto its hind legs, and suddenly seemed even bigger, impossibly huge. It loomed over Kiara, blotting out the moon, the long claws on its from paws glinting in the starlight. A low growl rumbles from its throat, before it threw back its head at let out guttural roar, a nightmarish sound that seemed to shake the very ground beneath them.

Kiara wanted to run. Every fibre of her being was telling her to run. But she knew that to turn her back on her foe when it was this close would leave her vulnerable. And despite her fear, part of her felt strangely calm. If this was going to come down to a life or death struggle, then so be it. So, taking a deep breath, she met her foe's piercing blue gaze with own.

"You don't scare me," she yelled, bluffing as hard and as fast as she could. "I am the future queen of the Pridelands. Whatever you are, you don't belong here. So turn around and leave now, or face the consequences!"

The beast lunged. A massive clawed paw swung towards her, but Kiara was ready and dodged to the side. She leaped low, aiming for the hyena's hind legs. It roared as she sunk her teeth into its calf, and violently kicked her away. But this moves caused it to teeter off balanced for a moment, and that was all the time Kiara needed. She took off at full speed as another clawed hand swung at her. She felt it graze he back but she didn't stop, she kept running at full speed, making for Priderock as fast as she could.

Heavy paws pounded the earth behind her, getting closer by the second. With dread, Kiara realised that she wasn't going to make it. She wasn't going to outrun this thing. In one last desperate move, she threw herself to the side, trying to confuse her pursuer with a sudden change of direction. Instead, she found herself leaping right into a clawed paw.

She was grabbed and thrown to the ground, and she felt the wind getting knocked out of her lungs. Momentarily stunned, she tried to scramble back to her feet. But then a dark shadow fell over her, and she looked up to see rows of sharp white teeth lunging for her. She cried out as the hyena sunk its fangs into the scruff of her neck, and she felt intense pain as the teeth pierced her skin, drawing blood.

"Help!" she yelled desperately as she was lifted off the ground. She tried to claw her attacker, tried to break free, tried to do anything at all. But she was completely powerless. With an awful growl, the hyena began to shake the young cub, and Kiara lost track of all time and space as she was thrown around. Everything was a whirling blur, she felt like her brain was going to explode. Then she slammed against something hard, and everything faded to black.

...

"Kiara? Kiara! Wake up!"

"Is she breathing? Oh no, that's a lot of blood..."

"What happened to her?"

"She's breathing! Somebody go get Rafiki!"

"C'mon Kiara, hang it there, it'll be okay!"

"Bunga, help me lift her! We need to get her back to Priderock."

"Who did this to her? Do you think it was Janja?"

"I don't know, but if it was he's going to _pay_ , big time!"

"Oh Kiara, please be okay..."

...

When Kiara finally opened her eyes, she could only make out fuzzy grey shapes at first. She blinked in confusion, and tried to stand up, but for some reason it felt harder than usual. Then she was hit with a wave of pain and she sunk back to the floor with a gasp. Her head and legs were aching, and the back of her neck felt sore and strangely tingly. She tried to wrack her foggy brain for an explanation for her situation, but came up with nothing but a bad headache.

In no hurry to try standing up again, Kiara lay back and tried to get a grip on her surroundings. Slowly, her vision cleared, and the fuzzy greyness became the familiar stone walls of the inside of Priderock. She realised that she was lying on a soft bed of grass, which was strange, as the lions usually just slept on the cool stone floor. The sound of gentle breathing came to her attention, and she turned her head to see her mother lying behind her, asleep.

"Mom?" she whispered, causing her Nala to stir. The lioness' blue eyes shot open, and her face shifted into a weary smile of relief.

"Oh Kiara, you're awake!" she said, leaning forward to give her daughter a gentle lick on the head. "Thank goodness, I was so worried... How are you feeling?"

"Um, not great," mumbled Kiara. "My head really hurts, but mostly I just feel kind of confused. What... what happened?"

Nala tilted her head, clearly concerned. "Sweetie, don't you remember? You were attacked... by a hyena."

Frowning, Kiara wracked her brain again. She remembered waking up way past sun down for the hunting test. She remembered Tiifu and Zuri bickering, then she remembered splitting off from them to follow her own trail. And then...

Blood. The scent of hyena. Full moon, beaming down on a hulking, furry shape. Blue eyes, huge claws raking at her. A guttural howl, fangs sinking into her skin...

The cub gasped, and her fur stood on end as the memories flooded back to her. Slowly, gingerly, she reached up a paw to touch the back of her neck. What she felt there wasn't a wound, but some kind of goopy substance, held in place by a few broad leaves.

"Ah ah ah ah! No touching!" Into the cave came Rafiki, who was carrying a few gourds. "You just let Rafiki's medicine do its work now, okay?"

The mandrill laughed and laid the gourd at Kiara's feet. It was full to the brim with fresh water, and was suddenly aware of how dry her mouth was. Forgetting her pain momentarily, she struggled to a sitting position and eagerly shoved her muzzle into the cool liquid.

"Kiara!" The princess looked up to see Kion rushing towards her. He was panting, as if he had just run a long distance, but that didn't deter the big smile on his muzzle. Upon reach her, the young lion nuzzled his sister warmly, getting a big glob of medicine stuck to his ear as he did. "You okay, sis?" he asked.

"I'm okay," she said wearily, nuzzling him back. Her brother's eyes were tired and brimming with concern, and for a moment his gaze lingered on the bandaged wound on her neck. He didn't comment on it though, choosing instead to get right down to business.

"The Guard's been patrolling the border since before dawn," he informed her. "So far there's been no more signs of any intruders, but everyone is on high alert. All herds grazing near the Outlands have been moved until further notice."

Kiara nodded. All standard Guard procedure for the aftermath of an outsider attack. Kion had done a good job. But there was still something she needed to know.

"Kion," she began, "what… happened? When you found me, I mean. Did… did you see it? The… _thing_ that attacked me?"

Kion's tail twitched. "No…" he said slowly. "We didn't see whoever attacked you. Not long after we heard you scream, the moon was covered by a cloud. It took us a while to find you in the dark, and by then…" The young cub sighed, then met his sister's gaze. "You were in a bad way Kiara. We thought… well, we knew we had to get you to Rafiki quickly. After that, Fuli followed the hyena's trail, but she lost it by the river. I should've sent her out sooner, then maybe we could have caught them, but I… I wasn't thinking." He hung his head.

"It's not your fault Kion," Nala reassured her son, leaning over to give his head a gentle lick. "You put your sister's wellbeing first, and that was the best decision you could have made in that situation."

"Yeah," agreed Kiara. "Don't beat yourself up over it. It was probably long gone by the time you found me anyway." _And if she had caught up to it, Fuli wouldn't have stood a chance._ She didn't say that last part aloud, though the thought sent a chill through her bones.

Kion seemed reassured though. He gave a small smile, then turned to look at his sister again, a new intensity to his gaze. "Kiara," he said seriously. "We couldn't identify the hyena by smell. I know this might be hard for you, but… do you remember anything, anything at all, about your attacker? Was… was it Janja?"

Kiara's heart started to drum faster in her chest. "No," she answered quickly. It hadn't been Janja, that much was certain.

"Then… was it Cheezi or Chungu?" pressed Kion. "Or-"

"No, it wasn't anyone from Janja's clan. It was…" The events of the night flashed in her mind once again, and her paws began to tremble. Kion sat there, ears pricked, waiting for her response. She could have told him right then, should have told him. But the words stuck in her throat. The Guard hadn't seen it. There was no way they'd believe her. She wasn't sure if she believed it herself.

Kiara shook her head to clear it, regretting the movement as pain shot through her neck again. "It was someone else," she said finally. "I'm sorry, but I don't remember any more details. It just… happened so fast."

"That's okay sis," said Kion, but Kiara had known him long enough to spot when he was hiding his disappointment. Across the room, Rafiki looked up from the new herbal salve he was mixing. For a moment it looked as if he was about to say something, but he just peered at the three lions, expression unreadable. Then he turned back to his work, muttering to himself. Neither Kion nor Nala noticed, and Kiara was too tired to worry about whatever had bothered the old ape.

"In any case," continued Kion, "we still need to be prepared in case there's another attack. I should get back to patrolling."

"Oh no you don't," said Nala firmly. "You've been up all night and you look exhausted, and I bet the rest of the Guard is too. I'll send some lionesses to take over the border patrol. In the meantime, you can go tell your father that Kiara's okay, but after that I want you to go _straight_ to bed."

Kion protested, but his mother was insistent. After he left to go find Simba, everything was quiet in the cave once more. Rafiki came over with his new mixture, and began to reapply it to the bite wound. Kiara winced as this treatment caused her neck to ache again, but once it was done she found the pain had eased significantly, and she began to drift off once more. But even as sleep took over, the thought of what she hadn't told Kion lingered in her mind. The Guard were searching the Pridelands for a hyena, but Kiara knew they wouldn't find what they were looking for. After all, it wasn't a hyena that attacked her.

It was a monster.

...

 **Thanks for reading! This story started out as a silly little thing to help me get back in the practice of writing, but it ended up getting bigger than I was expecting. Ain't that just the way it goes though? Anyway, please leave a review if you made it this far. I don't know when the next chapter will be finished, but I do have plans to continue it. Eagle-eyed readers may be able to guess where this story is going already, if so you can give yourself a pat on the back whenever the next part come out. Either way, I hope you enjoyed this story, and whatever comes next! :3**


	2. Chapter 2

The days following the attack were rough for everyone. Though the Lion Guard doubled their usual patrols, they found no sign of the hyena they were looking for. They wore themselves out, searching late into the night, with no success. Every night Kion returned to the cave tired and cross, and despite Kiara reassuring him that she was fine, it was clear that his inability to bring her attacker justice pained him.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Pride Lands were in an uproar. Word soon spread that a hyena had attacked two prideland animals, successfully ate one of them, and then vanished without a trace. Needless to say, the herds panicked. That was nothing new. What was new was the sense of anger that also spread like wildfire among the animals of the Pride Lands. After all, this time it was no mere zebra that had been attacked, but their _princess_. And despite Kiara insisting that the one responsible was a stranger, rumour got out that Janja's clan was to blame. Soon many began to question why the Lion Guard wasn't confronting the Outland hyenas, with some even calling for an immediate counterattack. It only served to put more pressure on the already harried Kion and his Guard to find the real culprit, but the animals would not be silenced. Their monarch had been nearly killed, and they wanted justice.

Kiara herself only heard about all this second-hand, as she spent the next few days recuperating in the cave. The scratches and bruises on her body all healed within a day or two, but the deeper wound on her neck took longer. For some reason, Rafiki's regular medicine just wasn't proving effective this time around, which frustrated the mandrill no end. So Kiara found herself confined to the inside of Pride Rock while he tested alternative salves and potions. It quickly became maddening, especially when she became well enough to walk again. It was made worse by her worried parents, who doted and fussed until she could hardly bear it. And even when she got some small respite from them, they weren't the only ones who wouldn't leave her alone.

"It's all our fault Kiara, and I just feel terrible," Zuri wailed dramatically, flopping down onto the floor in front of Kiara's sick bed.

The princess rolled her eyes. "No it's not," she said for what felt like the thirtieth time. "You guys aren't to blame at all."

"But we are!" Zuri insisted, crawling forward as though she were grovelling before royalty (which, to be fair, she technically was). "I knew we shouldn't have separated that night, I just knew something bad was going to happen."

"You seemed fine with it at the time," muttered Tiifu, but Zuri ignored her.

"I should have said something," she continued to wail. "I should have stuck with you, but I didn't, and now I feel awful! Oh, if only we'd stayed with you…"

"And what, fought them off for me?" asked Kiara with amusement in her voice.

"No," said Tiifu, who stepped around her friends prone form with an exasperated expression. "But we might have been able to stop you from doing something as thick headed as _attacking_ the hyena by yourself? Seriously, what were you thinking?"

Kiara shrugged. "It… seemed like a good idea at the time?" she said meekly.

"Kiara…"

"No, I'm serious. I thought I'd be able to chase them off, or at least outrun them and get back to the Guard in time. Besides, I'd seen Kion take on Janja one on one before. I thought I was strong enough…"

"Okay, but Kion has his roar and the rest of the Guard to back him up," Tiifu pointed out. "You may be as strong as him, but you were alone. It wasn't a risk you should have taken."

"Plus, didn't that hyena turn out to be like, mega huge and scary compared to Janja anyway?" added Zuri.

"Zuri, shut up," hissed Tiifu with a worried glance at Kiara.

"But like, the bite wound's really big compared to what Janja's given Kion, so that thing must be hu-"

"She doesn't need to be _reminded,_ Zuri, it was probably traumatic," Tiifu growled through her teeth, glaring at her companion. "Try and show a little tact."

"Oh," said Zuri, covering her mouth with both paws, eyes wide. "Ohmygosh I didn't even think of that, oh Kiara I'm so s-"

"It's okay," interrupted Kiara. The fur on her back had begun to bristle a little, but she ignored it and turned away. "Like I said, it seemed like a good idea at the time."

Kiara still hadn't told anyone else the whole truth about the incident. There was no way that they'd believe what she'd seen. Indeed, as time went by, she began to doubt that she had even seen it herself. It all just seemed so impossible, ridiculous even, surely it couldn't have been real? It seemed much more likely that fear and trauma had distorted her memories of the event, making a regular hyena seem like a behemoth. That was what she told herself. It must've been some trick of the moonlight.

However, at night, Kiara found herself standing once again on that moon-soaked plain in her dreams. Once again, she felt the beast's hot breath and heard its dreadful howl. Again it raked at her with its terrible claws and tore at her with its fangs. The last thing she would see was the eyes, piercing blue and angry, glaring into her before she awoke with a gasp. It was in those moments deep at night, with her heart pounding and her breathing heavy, that there was no mistaking that monster for a regular hyena.

Still, time continued to pass, and even the nightmares became fewer and less vivid. The Lion Guard went back to their regular patrols after nearly two weeks with no disturbance, and the gossip about the attack died down to a whisper. By this time, Rafiki had declared Kiara completely recovered from her injuries and she was allowed to stretch her legs outside of Pride Rock once again. The mandrill had told her that despite his best efforts, there would be some minor scarring on her neck where she had been bitten, but she didn't care. All queens had their battle scars, the way she saw it there was not harm in starting early.

Life in the Pride Lands settled back into a familiar rhythm. Kiara's training and royal duties resumed, and with her days so full, the hyena incident couldn't have been further from the princess' mind. The savannah was peaceful once more, and to the residents of Pride Rock it felt as though things were finally starting to go back to normal.

Unfortunately, they were wrong.

...

The sun was halfway across the sky on that day when Kiara started to feel ill. She and Kion were on their way back from a trip to the waterhole when she noticed her stomach had begun to churn. At first she ignored it, hoping it would go away, but the nausea only grew the further she walked.

"Something wrong sis?" asked Kion, who had noticed his sister dropping behind him.

"I'm fine," she insisted. "I've just got a bit of a stomache ache. It'll probably pass."

"A stomache ache?" repeated Kion, tilting his head in concern. "Do you need to see Rafiki?"

"No," said Kiara quickly. The last thing she wanted was wind up confined to the cave again over some minor ailment. "It isn't that painful, I probably just ate some bad buffalo."

"Kiara, we ate the same buffalo this morning, and I feel fine."

"Yeah well, I don't know, maybe only my half was off. Look, I promised Tiifu and Zuri that I'd hang out with them this afternoon, and I don't want to flake out on them if it's not absolutely necessary."

Kion shrugged. "Okay, if you say so. I hope you feel better soon."

But Kiara didn't feel better soon. In fact, by the time the duo got back to pride rock, her stomach felt queasier than ever. She met up with Tiifu and Zuri as planned, but the whole time she couldn't focus, and kept tuning out of the conversation.

"Kiara, you really don't look well, are you sure you're okay?" asked Zuri after a while. When Kiara didn't respond, she used her tail to tap the princess a couple of times on the head to get her attention.

"Huh? Oh, I'm okay," mumbled Kiara. Tiifu and Zuri exchanged a doubtful look.

"I don't really think you are fine Kiara," said Tiifu, brushing her pelt against her friend's supportively. "Your ears and tail are all droopy, and you keep frowning and zoning out. I think you're sicker than you're willing to admit."

"I'm fine," Kiara said again, gently pushing the other cub away. "Besides, no good queen lets a mere sore stomach get in the way of her royal duties. I've got to learn to endure it."

"What royal duties? We were just having a sand bath together," Zuri pointed out.

"Look, you could at least go lie down for a little while in pride rock until it passes," said Tiifu. "That way, you probably won't even need to see Rafiki if you don't want to." Kiara blinked, surprised that Tiifu had so quickly guessed what was behind her reluctance. Her friend knew her better than she realised.

"Okay," she said with a sigh. "You win, I'll go take a nap until I feel better… I'm sorry we barely got any time to hang out, I promise I'll make it up to you two tomorrow."

Tiifu leaned in to nuzzle Kiara. "It's all good," she purred.

"We'll catch up when you're feeling better," Zuri assured her.

By the time Kiara had dawdled her way back to pride rock from their meet up place it was nearly sunset. At this stage, a churning stomach wasn't Kiara's only problem. She felt hot and feverish, like the fur all over her body was burning, and there was a strange tightness in her chest. She staggered into the cave and flopped down onto the cool stone of her bed with relief. When Simba came over to ask what was wrong, she lied and told him that she was just tired and wanted an early night's sleep. She knew that if she told her dad the truth, he's worry about her, and then she _would_ have to see Rafiki for sure. Luckily he believed her, and she was left in the mostly empty cave to contemplate her symptoms.

 _This is the worst,_ she thought to herself. _I've never felt sick like this before, I hope I haven't come down with something awful._ She worried for a moment that perhaps telling nobody the real extent of her illness had been a bad idea, but quickly brushed those thoughts aside. _If I still feel sick in the morning, I'll tell Rafiki,_ she promised herself as she drifted off into a fitful sleep.

...

 _Blood. The scent of hyena. Full moon, beaming down on a hulking, furry shape. A guttural howl, huge claws raking at her. Bright blue eyes met her own, and white fangs flashed in the darkness…_

With a jolt, Kiara woke, panting rapidly. It took her a moment to get her bearings before she realised she was still safe in pride rock. Moonlight was pouring in through the cave mouth, illuminating some of the dozen sleeping lions spread across the cave floor. Kiara realised she was lying snuggled up to her mother, with Kion fast asleep a short distance away next to her father. The only sound to split the night was peaceful breathing, and the hoot of some distant nocturnal bird.

It then occurred to Kiara that she was about to be sick.

With great caution she rose to her feet, and when that movement didn't wake Nala she began to softly pad away. Hurriedly she weaved through her dozing pride, making a wobbly beeline for the exit before they could be rudely awoken by her throwing up buffalo chunks. When she finally made it out she paused for a second, to take a deep gulp of fresh air and look up at the sky.

Kiara was momentarily taken back to see the huge full moon, looming down on her from over the horizon. If that moon was up again, then… had it really been a month already since the attack? Reflexively, she reached up to her neck, feeling the scar tissue where the bite wound had been. An ominous rumbling in her belly brought her back to reality though, and she turned her back on the moon as she descended from pride rock.

As soon as her paws hit the grass Kiara braced herself for the retching, but it didn't come. Her stomach was doing backflips, and her skin felt like it was covered in fire ants. The tightness in her chest from earlier was now suffocating, she felt like she was straining for each breath. Most peculiarly, her paws had started to itch severely. She tried to scratch one front paw with the other, but nothing she could do seemed to lessen the sensation.

"Should have seen Rafiki…" she mumbled, and for some reason she thought even her voice sounded strange. The feeling of nausea was now so intense that Kiara wished she'd just puke already and get it over with. She kept aimlessly scratching her paw, which now wasn't so much itchy as it was tingly and… weird. Frowning, she looked down… and it was only her scarcity of breath that kept her from screaming.

The paws on the end of her forelegs were not her own. They were brown furred, with black pads and huge toes. And they were growing. As Kiara watched, mouth agape, the paws grew larger. Each toe got longer and more dextrous, and thick black claws erupted from the end of each. A frantic glance around revealed her back paws were doing much the same thing.

"W- what's…" Kiara managed to sputter out, but she was too stunned by what was happening to form any kind of reasonable sentence. Panicking, she tried to run back towards the cave, but she immediately tripped over her strange new paws and instead tumbled down the sloping hill in the opposite direction. By the time she righted herself, it became horrifyingly apparent that her paws weren't the only things that were changing.

Kiara's whole body was growing rapidly. Her arms were elongating, and the joints in her elbows and shoulders were changing too. Her back paws continued to grow, until she found it easier to rest her weight more on her hindlegs than her front. Suddenly she buckled in on herself, as she felt the grinding sensation of her spine rearranging itself, giving her a more hunched posture. Something odd was happening with her tail too, but Kiara was too preoccupied at this point to turn around and check. The whole thing felt like it should have hurt terribly but it didn't, it just felt extremely uncomfortable.

Next, her snout bulged outward right in from of her eyes, and her nose started to swell and turn black. There were a few seconds in which her mouth itched like mad, as her already sharp teeth got huger and sharper still. At the same moment, she felt her ears sliding around to a different position on her head, getting bigger and pointier. Her neck elongated and thickened, to match her already much wider chest and shoulders.

 _Help!_ Kiara thought desperately, but at this point she didn't dare try and speak, in case the only thing that came out was a horrific growl. The light brown fur from her paws was now spreading all over, making her feel like her skin was crawling with termites. Soon there was no trace of her familiar golden pelt, only coarse, light brown fur with darker brown spots.

 _Why… is this happening to me?_ Kiara wondered blearily, finding it difficult to even string the thought together. At this point she found her mind was getting hazy, as though control of her faculties was starting to slip away. She felt like she should do something, go get help, scream, _anything._ But this strange altered body wouldn't obey, her limbs felt like stone and her brain felt like mud. It was as though she was losing her grip on her mind, almost like something more powerful was dragging her under, and she was powerless to resist.

As her consciousness faded, Kiara was dimly aware that the changes to her body were slowing. The last thing she felt was the fur on her neck and back tingling. With great difficulty, she managed to slowly turn her head over her shoulder, just enough to make out a black mane growing in. It wasn't the thick mane of a lion, she realised dully. No, it was more like the thin stripe of a mane you would find on a zebra, or…

 _Or… a hyena,_ she thought, and that was the last thought she had before fading away into blackness.

...

"Zuri? Hey, Zuri… Wake up!"

Zuri grumbled to herself as she rolled over, reluctantly opening one eye to scowl at the one who roused her.

"Tiifu, it's the middle of the night, what do you want?"

The other cub stood before her, ears drooping, paws shuffling restlessly. "I know I'm sorry," she whispered anxiously. "It's just… it's Kiara, she's… not here."

"What do you mean 'not here'?" sighed Zuri, sitting up slightly on her forelegs.

"I mean that she's gone!" Tiifu wailed a little too loud for a whisper. "Like, I was having trouble sleeping because I was thirsty, right? And also I couldn't stop thinking about that _gross_ bug story Bunga was telling – ugh – which was DEFINITELY going to give me nightmares if I did fall asleep, and like… okay, that's not really important. What's important though, is that when I opened my eyes and looked over to where Kiara sleeps… she wasn't there. Then I looked around and, she wasn't anywhere, she's just _gone!"_

Zuri stared at her friend. "…and you woke me up for this, because…?" she yawned.

Tiifu blinked owlishly. She hadn't expected her friend to be so… nonchalant. "Because our _friend_ is _missing!_ " she hissed. "What if something terrible has happened to her?"

"Tiifu, you dolt," groaned Zuri. "Did you stop to think that Kiara maybe just got up to, I don't know, go pee or something?"

Tiifu blinked again. "Oh… I guess that… could be it…"

"Exactly, that or she was still feeling sick and needed to go throw up or something. She's probably fine. You're just working yourself up thinking she's been snatched away by a ghost or whatever."

Tiifu's face flushed a little. "I don't believe in ghosts," she mumbled.

"Liar," scoffed Zuri. She rolled over, putting her back to her friend. "Just go back to bed," she instructed. "Kiara'll be back before you fall asleep, and I personally am not going to be losing any sleep over this."

Tiifu just stood there, fretfully kneading the ground with her paws. "But what _if_ though Zuri?" she pressed. "I don't know, I still feel like we should go and check on her, just in case."

Zuri's only response was to make loud, fake snoring noises. Frowning, Tiifu turned around and flicked her tail indignantly.

"Fine," she pouted. "I'll go out and look for her myself. In the dark, all alone… so if I get carried off by a… a big owl or something, I'll blame _you._ "

The fake snoring pointedly increased in volume, and Tiifu left the cave in a huff.

When she stepped out into the moonlight, Tiifu peered over the edge of the rocky outcropping. "Kiara?" she called out softly, but there was no sign of the princess in the area directly below. Frowning a little, she hopped down the rocks until her paws touched the grass. She sniffed the air, and thought she caught the scent of her friend on the breeze, but the wind was blowing the wrong way for her to pinpoint it. "Kiara, are you there?" she said again, a little louder. There was no response, nothing stirred in the night.

 _Great,_ Tiifu thought as she scanned the horizon warily. _You better not have actually been ghostnapped Kiara, that'd be too ironic for words._ Slowly she padded away from Pride Rock, glancing around as she did. Normally she wouldn't be brave enough to go out this far in the dark, but with the Pride Lands illuminated by the full moon she felt a little bolder. As she trotted in the direction she guessed Kiara might have gone in, she tried to keep thoughts of ghost, monsters and bloodthirsty rogues out of her mind, with little success. Then Tiifu jumped nearly a foot in the air when she heard a sudden rustling noise.

"K- Kiara?" she gasped, eyes darting from side to side. Again there was no response, but she thought she saw a blade of grass in the distance twitch. Gulping, Tiifu padded towards the long grass, unwilling to wrench her eyes from where she thought she'd seen movement. "Kiara, if this is a p- prank, it's a stupid one," she said, her voice high and strained. "C- come on out before we both get in trouble." Suddenly there was another rustle, this time in the long grass directly to her left. Tiifu hesitated, heart in her throat, before she made up her mind. Taking a deep breath, she reached out a paw, and in one fluid movement pulled the foliage aside to reveal the source of the sound.

From the long grass, a small mouse blinked up at her. Tiifu blinked back, then she felt her whole body relax with relief.

"Hey, you're no ghost," she chuckled at the tiny mammal. The mouse just stood there frozen for second, only its whiskers twitching. Just as Tiifu reached out a paw to gently bap it, the rodent let out a squeak of fear and turned tail to run away. Tiifu watched it go, amused that such a little thing had given her such a fright. Still smiling, she turned to head back towards Pride Rock.

Something huge swung at her. Acting on pure instinct, Tiifu leaped to the side as a massive clawed arm raked the air where she had been. She landed awkwardly, stumbling to her paws in a daze. Realising the danger she was in, the cub whirled around to face her attacker, only to gasp as she laid eyes on a creature the likes of which she had never seen before.

It was huge, and stood on its big hind paws in a most unnatural way. Standing up like that, it was about twice as tall as an adult lion. In many ways, it resembled a brown hyena, but Tiifu had never seen a hyena that was this monstrous. It held its black clawed arms up, poised and ready to strike, and bared its massive white teeth. As the young cub gawked at the beast she found her gaze met by a pair of cold, brown eyes that swept over her in the manner of a predator evaluating a scrap of meat. In that moment it was not attacking her, but Tiifu sensed that if she moved so much as a muscle, it would strike.

And it was standing between her and Pride Rock.

 _Oh my gosh, what am going to do_? Tiifu thought despairingly. Her heart was beating like bee's wings in her chest, and she felt her whole body begin to tremble. As much as she wanted to run, run and never look back, but she knew that to move now would be death. So she stayed still, digging her front claws into the patch of dirt she crouched upon, and waited.

The beast looked down on her, nose twitching. For what seemed like an eternity, the two of them stood there, locked in a deadly standoff. Then, the beast growled and in one fluid movement dropped back on to all fours and lunged. In the same heartbeat, Tiifu pulled up a pawful of dirt and lobbed it directly into the eyes of her attacker. The beast faltered, flinching backwards and rubbing its face, and that was when Tiifu turned to make a break for it. _Now_ was the time to run.

She took off into the long grass at top speed, adrenaline pumping through her veins. Dimly, Tiifu recognized that she was running away from the safety of Pride Rock, but there was no time to worry about that now. In fact, she had only made it a little way away when a beastly roar split the silence of the night. Looking back over her shoulder, she saw the beast pursuing her on all fours, eyes full of fury. And to her horror, it was gaining ground.

The chase was on.

...

 **Thanks for reading! This chapter was originally supposed to be longer, but it was getting pretty long already so I decided to split it into two parts. Anyway, if you enjoyed this chapter or have feedback, please leave a review! Hopefully the next chapter won't take as long to finish since I have everything planned out already. Don't hold me to that though. :3**


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